We continue our look back at the classic horror film The Wicker Man, to read the first part of this feature please click here.

And so to the late, great Edward Woodward himself, who inspires great confidence as Sergeant Howie, a man whose unfettered dogged persistence defies all who stand before him in his pursuit of answers.

A key scene in understanding Howie comes when, upon visiting the school house, he is shocked to discover the school mistress (played by Diane Cilento, a former Mrs. Sean Connery and widow of screenwriter Anthony Schaffer) teaching her young class the phallic importance of the maypole. Approaching an empty desk he assumes to belong to Rowan Morrison (the missing girl at the centre of the mystery) he is surprised to discover a small beetle tied to a piece of string running endless circles around a small nail with no apparent meaning or purpose. “The little old beetle goes ’round and ’round.”, a fellow classmate explains, “Always the same way, y’see, until it ends up right up tight to the nail. Poor old thing!”. “’Poor old thing’?”, exclaims Howie incredulously, “Then why in God’s name do you do it, girl?” And why, in God’s name, DOES he do it?

For, of course, the little old beetle represents Howie himself and though he may be unaware at this juncture he too is running endless circles, he too is doomed and he too is a “poor old thing”. As a devout Christian what Howie discovers on Summerisle truly shocks him to the core; a community of pagans who worship the old Celtic gods and have thus rejected Christianity. But as Lord Summerisle later explains to Howie, the citizens of the island are not irreligious, they just happen to worship different gods.

“The Wicker Man” thus places the audience into Howie’s shoes and, although his strictly puritanical outlook on life often makes it difficult to sympathize with him, we nonetheless feel safe in the hope that he has the power of divine righteousness on his side. But, like Howie, we also suspect that there’s something far darker at the core of the community, and it’s not until the final moments that that dark truth is revealed to us. And in an age when twist endings are ten a penny and audiences savvy to a bit of narrative rug pulling it speaks volumes that the finale of “The Wicker Man” continues to shock me with each and every subsequent viewing, leaving me shaken, silent and in complete awe as the end credits roll.

If rumour is to be believed the leadrole of Sergeant Howie was initially offered to Peter Cushing who eventually turned it down due to scheduling conflicts. And perhaps, in retrospect, that was a blessing as despite being an icon to many I don’t feel Cushing could have afforded the role the same degree of humanity as Woodward did, for whilst Lee and Pitt add a certain sense of foreboding gravitas to the film and suggest a darker undercurrent to the narrative to cast such an iconic horror actor in the lead role would, I feel, have been a grave mistake.

And how can we possibly fail to mention the music? Written by the late Paul Giovanni, who sadly died of AIDS in 1990, the soundtrack was recorded by Magnet, a band formed by the film’s Associate Music Director Gary Carpenter for the sole purpose of the film. Standout tracks would undoubtedly be the seductively soothing rhythms of “Gently Johnny” and the hauntingly beautiful strains of “Willow’s Song”. Elsewhere, Christopher Lee provides his unforgettably deep vocals for “The Tinker of Rye”, “Corn Rigs” offers an arrangement of Robert Burns’ “Rigs Of Barley” and “The Landlord’s Daughter” provides a beer-swillingly bawdy singalong.

Widely considered to be a major influence on the neofolk and psych folk genres the soundtrack is not only a vital component of the film’s overall majesty but can easily stand apart as a superb folk album in its own right, incorporating elements of folk, Celtic, and other sounds to craft an unforgettable musical experience. It’s a wonderful blend of guitar, piano, recorders, lyre, and other acoustic instruments, rich in tone and beautifully played, and one that lends the film a great sense of character.

Not yet available on Blu-ray (early reports of a March 2010 release date were, regrettably, not to be) the best version of “The Wicker Man” currently on the market would have to be the 3 Disc Collector’s Edition released by Optimum back in September 2006. Sadly not as widely available as it initially was you should be able to track down a copy easily enough online, though expect to pay a little over the odds for such a privelege. Extras wise this release also offers up a hugely informative commentary from Lee, Woodward and Hardy (moderated by the bequiffed legend that is Mark Kermode) as well as “The Wicker Man Enigma” (35 mins) and “Burnt Offering: The Cult Of The Wicker Man” (50 mins), two superb documentaries that combined cover pretty much everything you want to know about the film. And if that’s not enough to get you all singing praise to your collective deities of choice then fans will be delighted to find the third disc, a shiny CD, features Paul Giovanni’s utterly wonderful soundtrack and a perfect opportunity to learn all the lyrics to “The Landlord’s Daughter” for the next time you’re down the local pub!

This release also includes both the original 84 minute Theatrical Cut alongside the 99 minute Director’s Cut that restores a futher 15 minutes to an already stunning film to produce what is quite possibly an even more superior film to the original. Granted, the additional scenes are of an extremely poor quality but they add a great deal more substance to the film. The main additon comes in the form of an extended prologue set on the mainland which is far more successful in setting up the character of Howie as we see him receive the mysterious letter that sets the story in motion though the extended cut also adds several additional and rejigged scenes that stretch the story over two nights and add a far more chronological sense of logic to proceedings.

But that’s all by the by … simply put, “The Wicker Man” is that rarest of beasts insofar as it defies genre pigeonholing having over the years been labelled as everything from a horror film to a psychological thriller and a musical to a existential melodrama. It’s a film that pulsates with such richness, character, subtext, intelligence and mystery that come the unforgettable climax very few individuals will leave the film untouched. In a generation that has frequently seen horror become overly homogenized, packaged, franchised and all too reliant on cheap scares, gratuitous gore and CGI overkill Hardy’s film triumphantly stands head and wicker shoulders above the competition as not only one of the greatest British horror movies of all time but, quite possibly, the greatest British film of all time.

“Animals are fine, but their acceptability is limited. A little child is even better, but not NEARLY as effective as the right kind of adult”

My first appointment with “The Wicker Man” had came, rather worryingly, at the tender age of just 14 when it had aired on BBC2 as part of that year’s season of “Moviedrome”.

It had all begun with a jazz-tinged, neon lit introduction by cult British director Alex “Repo Man” Cox in which he had informed me, amongst other things, that a cult film was “one which has a passionate following but does not appeal to everybody” and, most intriguingly of all, that the negative for “The Wicker Man” had apparently ended up “in the pylons that support the M4 motorway”.Then, before I had barely begun to question just who Cox’s hairdresser was the familiar refrains of “The Lord Is My Shepherd” had assailed my ears and the film had begun.

As I sat there, lit only by the flickering glow from the small, portable TV set a number of thoughts and concepts had spun their way furiously round my addled teenage brain. First and foremost was the question of quite what my loving mother would think if she knew her son was staying up late to watch a horror movie that incorporated such themes as pagan sacrifice, fertility rituals and sexual magic? And secondly, and perhaps most importantly, was the fact that said film had turned out to be so indescribably fascinating; the strange characters and events unfolding before my eyes a far cry from the horror films I’d previously become accustomed to.

Granted, my youth, innocence and teenage ignorance would mean a lot of the more subtle aspects of the film were lost on me but that night had nonetheless implanted a great deal of unforgettable imagery in my innocent mind … Christopher Lee’s wild hair, Britt Eckland’s boobs, a sinister menagerie of masked figures, Britt Eckland’s boobs, the towering behemoth that was The Wicker Man himself and, of course, Britt Eckland’s boobs!

And so, trying desperately not to become overly distracted by the aformentioned imagery, we fast forward 22 years and find the film still attracting the same brand of furious cult appeal it first garnered back in the early Seventies. American film magazine Cinefantastique have famously labelled it “the Citizen Kane of horror movies” and devoted the majority of their Volume 6, Number 3 issue from 1977 to the film, it won the Saturn Award for Best Horror Film in 1978 and currently holds a 91% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes whilst Christopher Lee regularly extolls its many virtues and  regards it as the greatest film he’s ever made, despite not being paid a single penny for doing so. But is all this praise and hyperbole truly justified?

In a word, yes!

So allow me, if you’d be so kind, to explain just why I love “The Wicker Man” so very much, why it ranks as one of my all time favourite films and why it’s a film that everybody should seek out and watch at the earliest opportunity (if, of course, you’ve not done so already).  But first, let us take the time to cast our eyes backwards once more as we take a brief look at the torrid production history that very nearly saw the film disappear into obscurity and never released upon the general public.

For “The Wicker Man”, it seems, has an origin story every bit as colourful and crazy as the many individuals that inhabit the distant shores of Summerisle itself; seemingly defying the odds stacked against it and surviving, despite what seemed like a conspiracy by both Fate and Chance to erase it from the very pages of cinematic history.

The film had gone into production under the supervision of the British Lion Film Corporation at a time of crisis for the British Film Industry, with Peter Snell serving as producer. However, with British Lion in financial crisis it had eventually fallen to businessman John Bentley to step in and save the film whereby it was immediately rushed into production; filming Springtime scenes in the middle of October and glueing leaves and blossoms onto the trees. A change in upper management at the company had ultimately led to Snell’s removal, and, when the new kids on the block had decided, in their infinite wisdom, that the film was unlikely to score big at the box office, the movie had seemed doomed to end its life consigned to virtual oblivion.

Hardy’s original 100 minute version had eventually had about 12 minutes of footage trimmed from it and the result ended up playing as part of a double bill with Nic Roeg’s “Don’t Look Now”. But this tale has a most unfortuitous of  footnotes and, if things weren’t bad enough already, the master negative had sadly been lost when it was inadvertently included in a shipment of disposable material that ended up buried beneath the M3 freeway.

So, Cox HAD been right all those years ago!

The script for “The Wicker Man” was penned by one Anthony Schaffer, a novelist, playwright and screenwriter who also adapted his own 1970 play “Sleuth” into a wonderfully enjoyable 1972 film starring Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier. On approaching the script Schaffer was keen to break convention and craft a horror film that avoided such genre staples as gratuitous blood and gore yet one that remained terrifyingly chilling nonetheless. It was, therefore, a cunning sleight of hand to cast such Hammer stalwarts as Christopher Lee and Ingrid Pitt and thus further the illusion that this was, indeed, a “horror” movie. As Lord Summerisle Lee delivers what is arguably his greatest ever performance, which is no mean feat when you consider that since 1948 he has appeared in no less than 266 films!

Yet despite highly questionable taste in clothing, a penchant for impromptu bawdy sing alongs and a quite horrific fright wig Lee effortlessly balances the mysterious with the mischievous whilst somehow managing to avoid the kind of OTT pantomime theatrics that so often beleaguer such roles. One of my quintessential Summerisle moments would undoubtedly be his response to Howie regarding a pagan ceremony. Upon spying a female congregation dancing naked over and around a fire Howie exclaims, “But those girls … they’re dancing in fire … and they’re naked!”, to which Summerisle replies, matter of factly, “Of course they’re naked … it’s far too dangerous to jump through fire with your clothes on!”.

On the flip side Pitt’s role is little more than a glorified cameo, but in her role as the local librarian she furthers the films omnipresent air of dark seduction … besides, who can quite forget the unforgettable image of her caught unawares in that undersized tin bath? And speaking of seduction how can we possibly fail to mention Britt Eckland who, despite allegedly having her vocals dubbed by Scottish jazz singer Annie Ross and requiring a stunt double for her naked rear shots, is wonderfully sensuous and beguiling as Willow, the legendary landlord’s daughter.

On Thursday I’ll be continuing this look back at The Wicker Man, check back then.

Their first collaboration hasn’t reached the cinema yet (the prison break thriller The Next Three Days), but director Paul Haggis and Russell Crowe may have another project already lined up – the long awaited adaptation of popular 80’s US TV series The Equalizer.

A few months ago it was reported that Crowe had signed on as the leading man and it was speculated that with a big name on board the project would finally get moving and today’s news is a sign things are moving ahead.

The original show starred Edward Woodward as an aging private investigator-cum-vigilante based in New York, who hid a shadowy history as some kind of British secret service agent.

Out of the recent proposed list of TV remakes, this one sounds like the most promising. The original show was pretty edgy at times and I’m sure both Crowe and Haggis intend to make something similar to this, without resorting to some nostalgic re-hash.

I really hope the makers also produce a new version of the amazing electronic theme tune from the TV show (composed by The Police drummer Stewart Copeland) – a piece of music that really resonates with fellow pop culture  enthusiasts from that era

News courtesy of The Hollywood Reporter.

It was perhaps the late Edward Woodward’s most iconic role, and just a hint of the TV series’ opening theme is enough to have us donning our rose tints and breaking out the Ferrero Rocher.

Now the film adaptation of The Equalizer looks as if it’s moving forward slowly with Russell Crowe stepping into the gumshoes of Robert McCall, a ex-government man whose past is mired in mystery, so much so that he spends his time coming to the rescue of those people who have nowhere else to turn. Like Quincy but with black leather gloves and a predisposition to headbutt his way to answers.

Long on the cards, the Weinsteins have a team developing the project and having Crowe’s name attached will make it easier to find the money, particularly as the 80s have well and truly returned to the cinemas with The Karate Kid and The A-Team making money across the pond.

So, another gritty action thriller with a male lead straddling the line of legality in the pursuit of revenge. Haven’t seen one of those for at least a few months.

The L.A. Times have the story, why not pop your head around the door and say hello?

Sad news is breaking that TV and movie legend Edward Woodward has died at the age of 79.

Though he is perhaps best known for his numerous TV roles, including the awesomeness that was The Equalizer (whose intro is embedded below) Woodward was a versatile actor who bought a stone cold gravitas to each of the roles he played.

For me though it was his leading role in Robert Hardy’s The Wicker Man that was his most impressive. His portrayal of a painfully devout policeman sent to a secluded Scottish Island to solve a series of disappearances is pitch perfect and the infamous denouement is given so much weight by Woodward’s incredible performance.

If you’ve not seen this film please do seek it out (and burn all copies of the Nic Cage remake), and revel in the paranoid riot of mystery and ritual.

Read the BBC’s report here, watch the intro to The Equalizer below and ponder the age old question of why Edward Woodward has 4 Ds in his name.